Oscar Chauke Cries Foul in a Robbery Against Sinyabi

By Mesuli Zifo

FORMER IBF junior featherweight contender Oscar Chauke is wondering what he needs to do to win a fight in South Africa after he was again at the wrong end of a disgraceful decision when he challenged reigning national champion Macbute Sinyabi at Orient Theatre in East London, SA on Sunday afternoon.

Chauke outboxed Sinyabi for the majority of the rounds even sending him through the ropes in the third only to be declared a loser by unanimous decision with ridiculous scorecards by the local judges.

It was the third time Chauke had been screwed when he appeared to have done enough to get the nod, having lost controversially to former IBF champion Takalani Ndlovu in a featherweight clash way back in 2009.

Chauke (28-7-2, 10 KOs) was again unfavoured by the judges against Ndlovu’s conqueror Jeffrey Mathebula when they battled for the IBF title eliminator that eventually led to Mathebula dethroning Ndlovu to earn the WBO/IBF title unification against Nonito Donaire this past July.

Against Sinyabi who was also coming off a 10th round stoppage defeat to the late Thai fighter Thanthong Kiattaweesuk in another IBF title eliminator in May, Chauke hardly put a foot wrong as he boxed behind solid fundamentals such as tucking his chin and leading with a jab before throwing a big right.

Sinyabi, who has knocked out 20 of his 22 victims with two losses, attempted to take the fight to the trenches, thinking his superior punching power would see him through.

But his flawed technique of lounging in with his punches played right at the hands of the more composed challenger.

By the fourth round Sinyabi was not only falling steadily behind on points, he was in danger of getting stopped until he changed his strategy and decided to use the perimeter of the ring to stay away from the marauding challenger.

While this strategy minimised the amount of punishment he was taking, it was still not effective enough as it was based more on survival mode than actually winning the rounds.

Chauke continued to charge forward repeatedly thudding his jab despite having an inferior wingspan.

Sadly the judges who all came from East London where Sinyabi is big drawcard and was ushered into the ring by SA’s popular rapper Bricks, interpreted the local hero’s safety first strategy as winning the fight.

Even when Chauke again came back strong in the championships rounds especially the penultimate one when he unleashed a series of unanswered power shots, his efforts were frowned upon by the local judges who all scored the fight in favour of Sinyabi by 118-112, 117-112 and 116-114 in one of the worst decisions in the venue notorious for hometown outcomes.

“I don’t know what I need to do to win a fight in South Africa,” a dejected Chauke said.

“I mean if I were to be generous I would only give Sinyabi four rounds, nothing more.”

His trainer Manny Fernandez said what happened to his charge was a black eye for boxing in the country.

“East London may be one of the boxing hubs in the world but sadly the officials are killing the sport here,” he said.